Wisconsin University, September 1980
After driving for about 2 hours, eighteen-year-old Vladimir Masters, or Vlad, as everyone called him, finally arrived at the leafy campus of Wisconsin University, the place that would be his home for the next four years. His mother, Olga, sat in the passenger seat of his beat-up, burgundy 1967 Chevy Impala. She was fiddling with her many dime-store bracelets, unable to face the reality ahead of her. Her baby was leaving home. Vlad could see the pain in her eyes, although she refused to meet his gaze for fear that she would burst into tears. He knew that she was incredibly proud of him, but like any mother, it was hard for her to let go. Vlad turned and studied his mother, as he was wont to do. He had always been an observer, silently taking in everything around him in order to determine his next move. Not that he was manipulative; far from it. But a lifetime of uncertainty had taught him to always be one step ahead. She was still so beautiful to him, despite the fact that her platnium blonde hair had large streaks of white, and her blue eyes had wrinkles of fatigue around them. Years of working the night shift and living paycheck to paycheck had worn her down and made her look much older than her thirty-four years.
"Mama," Vlad asked, quickly switching into her native Russian. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Yes, Vova," she replied, using her pet name for him. "But you know how I hate goodbyes." It was true; for as long as Vlad could remember, his mother had dragged out goodbyes for as long as possible, hating to see people go. Vlad picked up his duffel bag and pulled his rolling suitcase out of the backseat, stopping his diminutive mother from helping him. She was weak enough as it was; he didn't want her working any harder than she had to. He didn't bring much, just clothes, toiletries, and a few books. He didn't own much anyway.
Olga turned up to look at her son, so proud of his accomplisments: He had earned a full chemistry scholarship! But it was still excruciating to let go of the little boy she had devoted most of her life to; the little boy that was now a man. Tears filled her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day, but this time she couldn't stop them and before she knew it she was sobbing right there in the dormitory parking lot.
"Oh, Vova" she blubbered. "Where did all the time go? Just yesterday I was dropping you off at your first day of kindegarten!" She threw her arms around his neck and continued to sob.
"I know, Mama, I know," he whispered, gently patting her back.
"Are you sure you'll be safe here?" She asked. "I've heard about the things that go on at colleges, and it would just kill me if you ever got hurt-"
"Mama, calm down." He cut her off before she could work herself into a frenzy. "Don't worry about me. I know how to take care of myself." He leaned in closer to her so no one else would hear. "I brought my pistol." His cousin Roger gave it to him when he was fourteen, for protection. He'd grown up in a particularly dangerous area of Chicago. Olga relaxed after hearing that, comforted in the knowledge that her son had a means of self-defense. "As soon as I get a job," Vlad continued, "half of my paycheck goes to you."
"Vladimir, no, you need to support yourself," She replied, protesting their arrangement for the umpteenth time. She hated to take handouts from anyone, even her own son. And more than that, she wanted Vlad to have everything he could get his hands on after a childhood of just barely scrimping by.
"No, Mama" Vlad said. "We worked this out nearly a year ago. Now, are you sure you're okay taking the bus? I can drive you back if you need me to."
"I'll be fine," she responded, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes. "If you ever need me, just call." She gave him a long, tight hug, not wanting to let go. "I love you, Vova She said, her voice thick with emotion.
"I love you too, Mama" he replied, quicky wiping away the tears in his eyes. He was going to miss her terribly. But he had to carve out his own path and become his own person, and to do that he was going to have cut himself off from his mother, no matter how painful that might be. Olga hugged her son one last time before walking off into the distance. The bus stop was only a few blocks away, but the walk felt like an eternity.
Vlad watched his mother walk off until she he could see no more of her, and then he finally turned around and opened the door to his dorm building, walking up the second set of stairs to find his room, B-228. For the first time, he truly wondered what his roommate was like. He's been so busy preparing for his departure that he hardly gave it a second thought. All he knew was that his name was John Fenton. He reached his door and put the key in the lock, only to see that the door was unlocked. He walked into the room, wiping the dust off his shoes on the worn gray carpet. He looked up, and flinched in surprise at the man standing before him; he was quite possibly the biggest man he'd ever seen, standing about 6'8 tall and weighing about 350 lbs. His jet black hair was styled into a mullet with copious amounts of hair gel, and his sky-blue eyes shined with an almost manic excitement.
"Hey, you must be Vladimir Masters!" He shouted happily, rushing towards him and nearly crushing his hand as he shook it.
"Um, yeah," Vlad sputtered, overwhelmed by the man's sheer force of personality as well as his gargantuan size. "But you can call me Vlad."
"Can do, V-Man!" he bellowed.
"Gee, we're already at the nickname stage!" Vlad chirped sarcastically.
"Yeah, isn't it the greatest!" John said, Vlad's trademark sarcasm going right over his head. "As you can probably tell, I'm John Fenton. But you can call me Jack."
"You got it, Jack." Vlad said.
"THAT'S MY NAME, DON'T WEAR IT OUT!" Jack yelled in a singsong voice, trying to do a spin before nearly falling over and knocking over a lamp with his huge hand in the process. Well, that's the first thing he's broken, Vlad thought, resigning himself to the fact that Jack breaking things was likely going to be a daily occurrence.
"Oops, sorry!" Jack apologized, seeming genuinely remorseful for his blunder. "I'll clean it up!
"Don't worry about!" Vlad quickly forgave him, brushing the shards of china into his hand and dumping them into the trash can, knowing that Jack would just make the mess worse if he tried to clean it up. "So," Vlad asked, trying to make small talk with his roommate. "What are you majoring in?"
"Engineering!" Jack replied excitedly. "I've always loved to build and invent things out of scrap piles and junk lying around the house. Figured I might try it out big time here. What about you?" Vlad was surprised by his well-thought out answer.
"Chemistry." He answered. "I've always been fascinated by how chemicals run everything, and the infinite ways you can combine them to get something else."
"Another science man, I see!" Jack remarked. "Nice to see we have something in common. So where are you from?" Despite his social awkwardness, Jack was very talkative. "Chicago." Vlad muttered nochalantly as he folded and packed his clothes away.
"Wow, you're from the city!" Jack said, his eyes wide in amazement. "I grew up in a log cabin in the Ozarks. I'm the youngest of ten. And the only boy!"
"You mean your parents had nine daughters?" Vlad laughed incredulously, unable to disguise his disbelief at his new friend's improbable life story. But despite the craziness of it all, he had a feeling Jack was telling the truth. He didn't seem like he even knew how to lie.
"You bet!," Jack replied, continuing with his story as if that were the most normal thing in the world. "We slept five to a bed. When my dad went off to Vietnam in '67, my mom had to feed us all. And she wasn't the best hunter, so she killed one of our horses and we ended up eating it. Smokey was his name. And boy did he taste mighty fine!" Jack yelled, erupting in laughter at his own joke. Vlad nearly gagged at the thought of eating horsemeat. "Anyway, my old man came back, a little worse for the wear but mostly okay. Our lives were pretty quiet. Except for one thing."
"And what might that be?" Vlad asked, struggling not to laugh at Jack's suddenly dramatic tone.
"Ghosts. From the day I was born Mother and Dad taught me to beware of those suffering spooks!" Jack replied in a whisper, as if there were a ghost eavesdropping in the shadows.
"Ghosts?" Vlad laughed. "That's a bunch of bull! Everyone knows ghosts don't exist." He had tried to humor his goofy new friend, but this was simply too ridiculous to entertain.
"That's what they want you to believe," Jack said
"And who might they be?" Vlad asked, still struggling to contain his laughter.
"Why the ghosts, of course!" Jack answered as if it were incredibly obvious. "They want you to believe they're not real. All the better for them to wreak havoc!"
He yelled, his expression growing fearful as he thought of the paranormal menace.
"Oh, come on." Vlad replied smugly. "Have you ever seen a ghost?"
"Well, no," Jack said, doubt creeping into his voice for half a second. "But if I ever do, I'll be prepared!" He declared, his determination quickly returning. "Why, I'll tear it apart-
"Geez, calm down." Vlad interjected. "You're starting to sound like my uncle Phil. He always swore JFK was abducted by aliens."
"Yeah, right." Jack scoffed. Vlad was momentarily relieved to hear something rational coming from the young man. "I mean, it's so obviousthe ghosts got him. Some people are so ignorant!" Vlad sighed, finally giving up. Clearly there was no way Jack was going to see reason. He decided to just be grateful with what he had. Things could be much worse. His roommate could be a snob, or a drunk, or worst of all, a disco fan. He shuddered at the thought, quickly banishing it from his mind. Jack might be a little strange-well, a lot strange-but at least he seemed like a nice, honest person. "Well enough about ghosts," Jack said, interrupting his introspection. "I could talk about them for hours, but I know the topic can be quite confusing for a newcomer like yourself. So, do you have any siblings?" He asked
"Well, uh, no." Vlad answered. His childhood was an uncomfortable subject. "I'm an only child." As far as I know, he thought. His father could've had dozens of children since the last time he'd seen him
"Gee, that sounds crazy!" Jack remarked. "I can't even imagine it. A whole bedroom all to yourself! And no annoying sisters always making you play pretend. I can't tell you how many times I had to play the dragon in Sleeping Beauty!" He laughed.
"Yeah, sounds annoying," he mumbled unenthusiastically, feeling a pang of jealously at the thought of Jack's fun-filled childhood.
"So what did your old man do for a living?" Jack questioned.
Vlad's stomach seized up. They had landed upon the dreaded subject of his father.
"Can we please talk about something else?" Vlad asked, the smallest hint of desperation slipping into his voice.
"Oh, okay," Jack replied, quickly and kindly moving onto the next topic.
And so the roommates made small talk for the next hour or so, discussing mundane things such as the heavy traffic on the way to the campus and what kind of music they listened to. And to his surprise, Vlad could feel a friendship beginning to blossom. It was a strange feeling; outside of his cousins, he'd never had a real friend before. He hadn't been an outcast or anything like that; he'd simply preferred to keep to himself and quietly focus on his schoolwork, deadset on making it out of the ghetto. But still, he liked it; he was relieved to have someone to hang out with in such a new and unfamiliar place. And while Jack was undeniably weird, he wasn't weird in a malicious or creepy way. He was just quirky in a way that Vlad couldn't help but find endearing.
The rest of that weekend passed rather uneventfully, with Vlad spending most of his time sleeping or trying to memorize his schedule. By Monday morning, it was time for class, and Vlad hurried along, knowing that punctuality was key to being a good student, as well as currying favor with his professors. He only had three classes that day, with a long lunch break in between. Still, his first day of college was absolutley nerve-wracking, as he knew it was for the rest of the freshmen. After his lunch break, Vlad ambled along to his last class of the day, nuclear physics. He was still full from his rather large lunch, and he was starting to realize that the professors didn't give a rat's ass about whether you were on time or not. So he shuffled into class, carrying his ridiculously overpriced textbooks, looking forward to a long nap once he got back to his dorm. All of a sudden, he heard a bass voice booming from the back of the room.
"HEY, V-MAN!" the voice that he immediatley recognized as Jack bellowed. "COME SIT WITH ME!" The rest of the class turned and stared at their noisy peer, some glaring at him and some laughing. As Vlad walked towards the back of the room, their eyes turned to the "V-Man" in question. Vlad kept his head down and chuckled awkwardly, his cheeks burning with embarassment. He wasn't used to being the center of attention, especially in a negative way. Surprisingly, he felt no resentment towards Jack; it seemed as if his friend just couldn't help it. "Boy, am I glad to see you." Jack grinned. "Can you believe that I've had no one to talk to all day? Well I haven't! And none of my professors believe in ghosts. I was starting to wonder if I was gonna survive college!"
"Well, never fear, Jack" Vlad replied in a humorous voice "V-Man is here!"
"Now that's the spirit!" Jack cheered, clapping Vlad across the back with his giant hand. Vlad's body flew foward, the wind knocked out of him as his face smashed into the wooden table.
"Ouch!" he yelped instinctively, sitting up and rubbing his sore arms.
"Oh, uh, sorry." Jack apolgized, for once seeming embarrassed. "Sometimes I forg that not everyone is as big as me."
"Don't worry about it," Vlad laughed. "Everyone makes mistakes."
Their professor then walked in, a man who looked to be in his mid-60s, with a shock of white hair, hard grey eyes, a face lined with age, and an altogether austere bearing.
"I am Professor Hardwick. Welcome to nuclear physics. Before we get started, I want to let you all know that I do. not. play. games. Any funny business will get you a trip straight to the Dean's office. "Is that clear?"
The students stared at him in silence. "I said is that clear?" He repeated, anger seeping into his tone.
"Yes, Professor Hardwick!" The teenagers responded in unison, quickly sensing that their new professor was not someone to mess with.
"Now, any questions?" Professor Hardwick said smugly, confident he had gotten his point across. And like clockwork, Jack raised his hand. Vlad sighed and put his hand over his face, knowing that this wasn't going to end well. "The heavyset gentlemen in the back," the Professor said, pointing at Jack.
"Thank, you Professor." Jack said. "Now, are we going to be talking about ghosts at all in this class?"
"Ghosts!" Hardwick sputtered "What did I just say!?"
"Oh, I can assure you I'm not messing with you." Jack replied in a polite manner.
"I simply want to know if we're going to talk about the most important issue of the modern world."
"Most important issue-do you want to go to the Dean's office?" Hardwick threatened, giving up on trying to reason with the boy.
"Oh, um, no," Jack mumbled, not wanting to land himself in administrative trouble on his first day of college.
"Then I recommend that you shut your mouth immediatley. Understand?" Jack nodded, and in a move that was completely out of character, remained silent for the rest of the class period. The entire class, including Vlad, was struggling to hold back their laughter at the hilarious exchange. But while the rest of the class was simply laughing at a buffon, Vlad was enjoying the quirkiness of his first real friend. Maybe, he thought, college won't be so bad after all.
Well, it's finished! The first chapter of my very first story on this website. Please leave reviews, and be as honest as possible. Thank you for reading!